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« Rabat, a Metropolitan City », Between Displayed Image, Reality of Image and Identity
Embodying for a long time the image of an administrative capital where the functionary dominate, where the urban setting is aging and where quality of life is declining, the city of Rabat has recently embarked on a frantic race to reinvent a new image: a modern, innovative and qualitative image. In order to achieve this, several projects and programs of development, embellishment and construction, has been initiated with a common feature which is greatness (large theater, high towers, large stations, large arteries, new centralities, etc.). This greatness aspect is visible through the importance of the areas involved, the volumes and the shapes designed, the modes of transport developed, the means and resources deployed in add to the promotion of architectural signatures of the renowned architects, and the modes of governance and project management. Henceforth, Rabat shows its ambition as a city of culture, as a green city and as a “city of light”. The time of Rabat, as administrative city, is over. However, the image displayed and publicized seems controversial compared to the reality of certain urban spaces, often with high heritage value, that develop on the margins of programs and projects initiated. Real deficits are observed in terms of basic equipment and services, in terms of transport network and in terms of urban coherence and social cohesion. Everything contributes to an urban image with two facets: one more qualitative, more modern and more elitist, while the other is more spontaneous, more vulnerable and more devalued. Faced with this identity transition and this double temporality, what image and identity do we want for Rabat? What vocations do we claim for this city which aspires to become a national and international metropolis? What developments should be advocated for a capital with such a rich and diversified history? What relationship can be established between the local identity and the global identity of the city? How does the citizen apprehend his living spaces in the face of such universal urban model, where social connections as well as the spatial relationship mutate towards new practices? These questions will be enlightened through the confrontation of major projects underway and urban realities, through the analysis of the new urban model which is universal, modern and generating a new image and a new urban identity, as well as through the impact of these major projects both on the urban landscape and quality of life. It’s with these considerations in mind that this paper is drawn up: « Rabat, a metropolitan city », between displayed image and reality of image and identity.
1. Introduction
Faced with the challenges of national and global
competitiveness guided by the neoliberalism issues, cities must assert themselves
considering a context in which the trend toward metropolisation requires rapid
and efficient economic development, a development that transforms urban
complexes into permanent building sites and initiates a real urban revolution
based on new operations.
New urban development strategies and new governance tools
are used to serve the need for attractiveness and contemporary issues. Thus,
planning principles based on project town planning and imported architectural
models are used as way of media coverage attracting foreign investors and
potential users.
A real paradigm shift is underway. Cities are deeply
remodeled according to a universal urban model that generates a transition in
the image of the city and in its identity, a model based on an operational
planning called in french "urbanisme de projet" wich means an
urbanisme based on urban projects instead of the principles of classic urbanism.
Moreover, and under the excessive effect of marketing
campaigns, cities are made according to a logic of profitability often
neglecting the identity and cultural language that makes their history and
justify them but also and especially to depend on areas deemed unfit for
development because precarious or without assets.
Moreover, these mutations, although of a physical nature,
tend more and more to impact the social bonds as well as the relation of the
user to his living spaces. Practices guided by a new perception of the urban
environment reflect the advent of a new urban area where the sharing of space
tends towards elitism and segregation.
Selected to make the international renown of the Kingdom
alongside other cities with strong development potential, such as Casablanca,
Tangier or Marrakech and Agadir, the city of Rabat has been trained in a race
to reach the standards that will make it the “cultural metropolis” of a Morocco
in search of a global and regional positioning.
Thus, by choosing the case of the metropolis of Rabat,
this article will be an opportunity to unerstand how this change of vocation
from an administrative capital to a capital of culture is happened, to
understand the new paradigm that guides the development strategies wich
transform the city on a national and international urban showcase and to
highlight the impact of the selective new urban model on the urban landscape
and the local identity of the city of Rabat in order to better understand the
difference between its desplayed image and the one that really caracterizes it.
We will also try to apprehend the new spatial practices
that result from this mode of
development and to emphasize the relation that the user maintains with his
living spaces in front of an urban model in break with the local context.
A dual spatio-temporal dimension is identified: two urban
realities, two perceptions of space and two relationships to space structure
the city and shape it.
2. «Rabat, capital of culture», or the manufactured image of a metropolis under construction
Subjetc of a vast development program focused on its
seafront and parts of its hinterland, the city of Rabat became since the 2000s a large open-air building site.
Having for aim supporting the enlarged regional policy, strengthening the
socio-economic and sports structures as well as the road infrastructure,
improving the human development indicators and promoting the tourist
attractiveness of the region, this program embodies the advent of a new urban
era.
From an administrative capital to a cultural one, all the
efforts are invested to make Rabat a metropolis with international outreach. A
new logic of urban planning characterized by universality and based on urban
projects deeply impacts the urban structure of the city in add to its urban
landscape.
Indeed, this new model draws its references in
international concepts reproducing standardized urban forms (marina, Mall,
technopoles, towers, etc.) and makes that the city develops according to a new
organization of the territory, based on a multipolarity and on new centralities
leading to new mobilities and new connectivities.
New urban landmarks symbolizing contemporary
architectural trends, based on scenography and aesthetic research, replace the
old ones and shape the image and identity of the city: the tower Moroc Telecom,
the new hotel "The View", the new mall "Rabat city center",
the great theater of Zaha Hadid, the national library, the museum of
contemporary art, the project of construction of the highest tower of Africa,
etc. Many projects are underway and the rhythm of realization is going fast at
a time when the country is seeking to position itself internationally.
The development project of the “Bouregreg valley” as well
as the new business district “Hay Riad” are emblematic examples in this field..
Indeed, it was through the development project of the
Bouregreg valley, instituted as a major urban issue, that the culture of the
urban project was introduced, surpassing the classic approach that the city
experienced during its different historical periods, an approach based on
planning.
Figure 1 : The Tower Maroc
Télécom”-Hay Riad-Rabat
Figure 2: the theater of Zaha Hadid- Valley of Bouregreg
- Rabat
Figure 3: The national bibliothèque-Rabat
Consisting of a large number of structuring projects
often referred to as "mega projects", the Bouregreg valley was chosen
because of its location in the heart of the city - but also on the seafront and
along the Oued Bouregreg- and due to the importance of its landscape and
heritage assets, in order to reflect the new image of Rabat, an image with
strong advertising connotations whose role is to attract potential investors
and drain foreign capital especially those from the Gulf countries.
Thus and thanks to colosal expenses, the Bouregreg valley
has become more than emblematic, it embodies, since the launch of the urban development
program, the new identity of the city as capital of the culture but especially
as showcase urban at all scales. To the two former identities (historical
center and colonial center) is added a third one wich is "hybrid",
uniformist and universal.
Also, and on the right bank of the valley, other projects
come to be welded to the site as part of the “supposed” integrated development program
of Rabat: the construction of the highest tower in Africa, the long-awaited
theater of Zaha Hadid, the villa of arts and culture, the new cinema complex,
the sculpture gallery, luxury residential complexes, etc. Lot of projects, or
rather, architectural signatures, which further support the "marketing"
approach Largely inspired by Western countries.
It must be admitted that all these operations benefited
from a brand new governance model without which these projects would not have
emerged. Indeed, a foreign mastery and a new system of actor enjoying
autonomous decision-making were put in place to offer more efficiency and
convenience to the realization of the development program of the Valley of the
Bouregreg (derogations on an ecologically vulnerable site, expropriations for
public utility, relocation of some local populations, etc.).
This new approach was accompanied by the implementation
of new tools for framing the action such as autonomous development agencies,
development companies, external
subcontracting, investment agreements, international consulations, etc. This
new approach was an opportunity to
introduce new forms of action whose deeply impact the metropolis.
Indeed, it is a two-speed urbanism that marks the frame
of the city. Between an operational urbanism that develops at the Valley and
the maritime front of the city but also at the business district "Hay
Riad" and a classic urbanism based on planing which frames the rest of the
metropolis, the city develops in segments without real urban or social links.
The rhythms are different and the results in terms of
development are even more so. The fact that the interest but also the efforts
and the investments which accompany them are directed towards certain zones of
the city without others, ended up creating a kind of social ghettoisation and a
disruption of the urban framework (a deficient in transport infrastructure, ineffective
relocation operations wich stay unsuitable for the target populations, persistent
insecurity in some remote areas of the metropolis, etc.).
Figure 4: Youssoufia district-Rabat
Figure 5: The transport problematic in Rabat
The image of a resilient, modern and equitable city whose
slogan is "Rabat, City of Light" as a reminder of the vocation (or
rather the etiquette) of the capital of culture,
becomes controversial in the face of another reality.
3. From the " displayed Image " to the "Reality of the image": an urban paradox to catch
Thinking outside the usual uses, mobilities, residential
paths and identity references wich is very closely linked to the history of
places, this new generation of projects is far from being shared by the entire
community and often lacks territorial belonging. Also, the high cost of
projects, some of which are non-priority, accentuate the gap that exists
between the different neighborhoods of the city where some lack the
infrastructure and amenities.
Regression of the identity role of the old centers
(medina, colonial center), reconfiguration of the urban landscape according to
architectural models lacking contextuality, progressive loss of urbanity and
appearance of new relationships to space (multiplication of socially selective
spaces) , proliferation of unhealthy housing (especially the Youssoufia and
Yaakoub Al Mansour districts), transformation of the landscape on the outskirts
from rural habitat towards unhealthy social or economic housing (douar Lhajja,
industrial district, Takaddoum district, Inbiaat neighborhood, etc.), new opening
of new urbanization aerea and fragmentation of land (the new aerea of Akrach,
Guiche Oulad Mtaa, etc.), persistence of informal means of transport, the
inefficiency of "resettlement" operations that have created more
social precariousness, all of which attest to the fact that the back country of
the metropolis proliferates on the sidelines of the so-called
"integrated" development program of the city of Rabat, a program that
in the end only affects areas with high media potential whose developmental
assets are undeniable (seafront and banks of the river of Bouregreg, new
residential and administrative districts of high standing chosen for co to
establish a new urban centrality such as the "Hay Riad" business
district, etc.).
A striking paradox between the image we want to give to
the city, the controversial image of a modern, resilient and fair Rabat and the
image of a Rabat overwhelmed by persistence of sub-integrated neighborhoods
thriving there and the precariousness of the informal economic activities that
are multiplying.
Figure 7: informal economic activities-the médina of Bab
El Had-Rabat
Thus, and based on the example of the development project
of the Bouregreg valley, the development program was done by omitting the role
of such an intervention in the development of supra-municipal issues. Its
relevance at the scale of the municipality should not compromise the major
balances on the scale of the whole city, but rather should ensure urban
continuity where intercommunality is essential.
Some questions must therefore be asked: are the new urban
development programs carried out in continuity with the existing? Are conncettivities
taken into account? (public transport, networking, etc.), what is the impact of
development projects on the natural area? (landscape, relief, sensitive
environments), do these programs and opréations promote a social mix? Is
privacy preserved? does the citizen adhere to the programs and transitions they
involve or is he simply a spectator? Do projects value built heritage and
surrounding natural heritage? what relationship can there be between local
identity and fabricated identity? as many fundamental inter-actions that should
precede any new development, and this, in favor of solidarity, equitable and
balanced living areas.
4. Conclusion
Faced with the challenges of atractivity wich is strongly
linked to the issues of conpettivity, the image of the city has become a real
tool for city branding. The promotion of cities is now done through the
creation of advertising slogans assigned to various development programs such
as "Rabat: ville lumière" or "Al-Hoceima, Manarat Al
Moutawassit". In this sense, strengthening the brand image of the cities
often involves urban and architectural projects likely to have a strong
influence. So, the import of signatures or global architectural icons strongly
contributes to make the city identifiable and atractive.
Thus, this approach of labeling serves to assert the
status of the city and strengthen its attractiveness by giving it a vocation
(capital of culture such as Rabat, capital of tourism and leisure such as
Agadir or Marrakech, economic capital such as Casablanca, etc.).
However, this race for attractiveness can, as in the case
of the city of Rabat, generate adverse effects that call into question the
image of the city. Indeed, an imbalanced development within the city leads to a
strong growth of social inequalities in terms of housing and access to
infrastructures and equipment thus inducing perverse effects that affect the
quality of life (discomfort, social tensions and insecurity). An unbalanced
attractiveness is likely to engender repulsiveness.
Being selective, the attractiveness raises the question
of maintaining the balances of the city (between its multiple functions and
between its populations) and that of its harmonious development. The image of a
city therefore depends on its ability to couple economic opportunities with
social life (infrastructure, work, housing, leisure, etc.)
It must be highlighted that the image of the city is
strongly linked to the social representations, to identities and to the
strength of the feelings of belonging that these generate. A second image is
designed by the dweller, other than the one manufactured. This image refers to
the perceptions and aspirations of people, and their belief that the city is
likely to satisfy their aspirations. The success of the image of the city
therefore depends on its ability to communicate with citizens by mobilizing
appropriate cultural registers and highlighting assets that make sense to the
public in their urban experience.
Thus, the construction of the image of a city must be characterized
by a symbolic aspect based on the highlighting of specific local values, a
singular history, the "personality" of the city, its dynamism, its
aesthetic qualities but also its potential heritage. The goal is to put the
image chosen for the city at the service of an equitable sharing of urban space.
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